Paper Lion
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer George Plimpton
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton was an American journalist, writer, editor, and actor. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review.-Early life:...
.
In 1960, Plimpton, not a professional athlete, arranged to pitch to a lineup of baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
stars in an All-Star
All-star
All-star is a term designating an individual as having a high level of performance in their field. Originating in sports, it has since drifted into vernacular and been borrowed heavily by the entertainment industry...
exhibition, presumably to answer the question, "How would the average man off of the street fare in an attempt to compete with the stars of professional sports?" He chronicled this experience in his book, Out of My League.
To write Paper Lion, Plimpton repeated the experiment in the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
, joining the training camp of the 1963 Detroit Lions
1963 Detroit Lions season
The 1963 Detroit Lions season was their 30th season in Detroit and their 34th season overall. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle indefinitely suspended Lions Defensive Tackle Alex Karras along with Packers Halfback Paul Hornung for placing bets on NFL teams. Five other Lions players were fined $2000...
on the premise of trying out to be the team's third-string quarterback
Quarterback
Quarterback is a position in American and Canadian football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive team and line up directly behind the offensive line...
. The coaches were aware of the deception; the players were not until it became apparent that Plimpton did not know how to receive the snap from center. Plimpton, then thirty-six, showed how unlikely it would be for an "average" person to succeed as a professional football player. When finally inserted at quarterback for a series in a scrimmage conducted in Pontiac, Michigan
Pontiac, Michigan
Pontiac is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan named after the Ottawa Chief Pontiac, located within the Detroit metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 59,515. It is the county seat of Oakland County...
, Plimpton managed to lose yardage on each play, convincing many in the crowd that he was a professional sports clown
Clown
Clowns are comic performers stereotypically characterized by the grotesque image of the circus clown's colored wigs, stylistic makeup, outlandish costumes, unusually large footwear, and red nose, which evolved to project their actions to large audiences. Other less grotesque styles have also...
inserted for amusement purposes, not someone who was genuinely giving his best effort.
The book is memorable for its insights into the personalities of the players and the coaches. Figuring prominently in the book are linebacker
Linebacker
A linebacker is a position in American football that was invented by football coach Fielding H. Yost of the University of Michigan. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up approximately three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage, behind the defensive linemen...
Wayne Walker
Wayne Walker
Wayne Harrison Walker is a former professional football player and sports broadcaster. He played in the NFL for fifteen seasons, from 1958-72 for the Detroit Lions. A starter throughout his career, #55 played in 200 regular season games as a 6'2", 225 lb...
, quarterback
Quarterback
Quarterback is a position in American and Canadian football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive team and line up directly behind the offensive line...
Milt Plum
Milt Plum
Milton Ross Plum was an American football quarterback who played for the Cleveland Browns , Detroit Lions , Los Angeles Rams and New York Giants of the National Football League.-Career:...
, defensive tackle Alex Karras
Alex Karras
Alexander George "Alex" Karras , nicknamed "The Mad Duck", is a former football player, professional wrestler, and actor, best known for his stint with the Detroit Lions of the National Football League from 1958–1962 and 1964-1970 and for his role as Mongo in the film Blazing Saddles...
, cornerback
Cornerback
A cornerback is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in American and Canadian football. Cornerbacks cover receivers, to defend against pass offenses and make tackles. Other members of the defensive backfield include the safeties and occasionally linebackers. The cornerback position...
Dick "Night Train" Lane, and star player (head coach in the movie) Joe Schmidt
Joe Schmidt
Joseph Paul Schmidt is a former American football player and coach at both the collegiate and professional levels. His 13-year career with the National Football League's Detroit Lions gained him a place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973.-Collegiate career:Schmidt grew up in Pittsburgh,...
, among others.
Prior to Paper Lion, Plimpton had pitched to major league baseball players and sparred with boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
great Archie Moore
Archie Moore
Archie Moore, born Archibald Lee Wright , was light heavyweight world boxing champion who had one of the longest professional careers in the history of that sport....
, but the success of this book, which was later adapted into a 1968 film
Paper Lion (film)
Paper Lion is a 1968 comedy film starring Alan Alda as writer George Plimpton, based on Plimpton's 1966 nonfiction book of the same title depicting his tryout with the Detroit Lions of the National Football League.-Cast:* Alan Alda - George Plimpton...
starring Alan Alda
Alan Alda
Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo , better known as Alan Alda, is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and author. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series M*A*S*H...
as Plimpton, helped launch a kind of second career for Plimpton as an everyman athlete. Plimpton followed Paper Lion with books about golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
and ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
, as well as two more football books.
In 2008, sportswriter Stefan Fatsis
Stefan Fatsis
Stefan Fatsis is an author and journalist. He regularly appears as a guest on National Public Radio's All Things Considered daily radio news program and as a panelist on Slate's sports podcast Hang Up and Listen. He is a former staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal.-Biography:Fatsis grew up...
joined the NFL's Denver Broncos
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver, Colorado. They are currently members of the West Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
as a kicker. His story, which has been compared to Paper Lion, is told in A Few Seconds of Panic
A Few Seconds of Panic
A Few Seconds of Panic is a nonfiction first-person narrative by Stefan Fatsis, published in 2008. The book chronicles Fatsis, a professional 43-year old sportswriter working for the Wall Street Journal, and his attempt to play in the National Football League. Along the way, he relates the personal...
.